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PM-James — 001 SS HTKF, Solar and Shadow
#anniversary #comics #espeon #fairy #pokemon #remake #series #shadow #solar #special #ss #umbreon #solarshadow #how #htkf
Published: 2016-09-02 06:33:51 +0000 UTC; Views: 7709; Favourites: 56; Downloads: 6
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Description
Happy three years! So like promised, here is the first of many new pages being added to How to Kill a Fairy in order to improve the start. I went into detail about it already in my journal as to why but I'll sum it up again here. Basically I hated the way the story started, it was the result of a poor mind set that I would have a small audience, lack of artistic abilities with photoshop, and a reliable schedule. All resulting in a very poor start to the story. I feel the story picked up a lot later, but I always wanted to fix the start with something that matched the rest of the story. So hopefully we'll have a strong start to go with a strong ending.Anyway, hope you enjoy and a ton more to come this anniversary special!!!
*I will not be changing the first page to these ones till it is finished. to offer a fluent narrative. The remake series will finish at the end of October.*
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Comments: 34
The worst, and, unfortunately, the most prominent thing about this page is that the poses are very stiff. There isn't enough information in the establishing shots to tell where they are. The panels are all the same size and shape, and while that is not inherently bad, there is nothing really dynamic about anything here. The poses and the stiffness do not contribute to the storytelling as it doesn't convey a point very well. The poses don't convey the differences in their personality. The typos distract. The black shading and lines look very unprofessional and don't add anything to the already-stiff art.
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I don't really see your point in most of this stuff. I would like you to either elaborate upon or re-evaluate some things for me.
"There isn't enough information in the establishing shots to tell where they are" The first one establishes the four most important places, the lake, the valley, the forest, and the city and their positioning from one another. It also says what region they're in. So we know the general area and all the most important places in it. The next shot shows of the four major areas, we will be focusing on the city. Followed by a shot of a hot dog vender on one of the streets. I don't see what is unclear about where they are. It established the areas of interest, followed by which one we will be focusing on and then proceeds into our events in said area. I can only think of two ways to offer any more information, and both seem unnecessary. The first would be to put in a narrator, but there's nothing for a narrator to tell that isn't told in the comic itself, so that be needless and pointless. The other would be to include a third page showing which street the hot dog vender was on, which would also be pointless because we already know the hot dog vender is in Akripap city, and exactly where he is not very important to understanding what is going on here. So that be a needless panel to add.
"The panels are all the same size and shape, and while that is not inherently bad, there is nothing really dynamic about anything here." I argue that would be inherently bad, because it would give a false implication of importance and in doing so, would rob that effect from later pages. Nothing here is dynamic, it's two characters having a pleasant conversation. Nothing they say is massively important, all it does is establish who these two are, with focus on Solar. Say later in the comic, somebody dies. Well to have a bigger impact on this event, I make the reaction shots from the other characters look like broken glass. Don't you think that if every other page had that sort of element, that effect would have significantly less impact? Use another example. Say during a fight, I want to show how powerful a character is, so when they strike somebody, it sends the other guy flying through a panel. Well that be pretty impressive... if he was the only one that did that. If everybody else was able to do that, then there would be nothing special about him doing it, now would there? So no, I say that this is a perfect way to layout this page, it is organized, easy to follow, and doesn't weaken the effect of future pages using elements like that. This is a less is more page. Nothing wrong with that at all.
"The poses don't convey the differences in their personality" I 100% disagree with this one. Solar in nearly every panel is either laughing, smirking, rolling his eyes etc. He looks very cocky in this page. Shadow is calm and relaxed, at best just teasing him, so he is fairly straight and is usually just looking at Solar. maybe with a small smile. Even when they laugh, Shadow just chuckles, while Solar laughs out loud. The differences seem incredibly apparent to me. The point of this page is to establish Solar is incredibly cocky and that was achieved.
"The poses and the stiffness do not contribute to the storytelling as it doesn't convey a point very well. " I won't say this often, but this is straight up wrong. Not even that I just disagree with it, this is straight up wrong. You can even test for this, just remove the dialogue and text and see if we can tell what's going on. The first two panels just show an environment, probably the setting. The third panel shows a guy smiling, while holding money at some sort of stand, obviously wanting to buy something there. The next panel shows the vendor about to put mustard on a hotdog but it and the mustard bottle both float out of his hands in a purple energy coming from behind him. The next panel shows the hotdog has been taken in that direction and he is waving his fist at it. Obviously more angry about this then anything else. The next panel shows an Espeon standing a short distance away, calmly waiting for the hot dog to come to it, with the hot dog guy waving his fist at him. He's calmly standing there, so he probably doesn't care. The vendor's reaction is also completely different from the customer's who has looked puzzled and dumb founded this whole time. Since it's safe to say the vendor has been here longer than the customer has ever been here, it's safe to assume that the difference in reaction is a result of the Espeon doing this frequently. The next one shows it receiving the hot dog and an Umbreon behind him, waiting around the corner. The Espeon is smiling, it's safe to assume that he isn't concerned about the hotdog vendor at all. Next panel shows them heading down the alley way the Umbreon was standing in. Both of them are talking about something, with small smiles, no way to tell exactly what right now. The next panel shows the Espeon is no longer smiling and is rolling his eyes. Since the Umbreon was smiling last panel, it's safe to say he was either teasing him about what he just did or how he did it. The next panel shows both of them smiling, with the Espeon looking slightly down. Again not sure what they're talking about there but both are smiling so it's probably a light hearted conversation of some sort. The next panel the Espeon is laughing about something, so it's likely the two were teasing each other back and forth in the last panel and probably telling jokes or something like that. For some reason, the Umbreon is now looking directly at the audience in this panel. His ears are perked up, and his eyes are much wider here then in the other panels, so he probably heard something come from that way. The next panel shows the two of them looking down a T-path with a Sylveon going through the garbage. We can't see their faces but neither look to upset about it. So using only the poses, I know Solar stole a hotdog, the merchant is mad about it, the vender and the customer's reactions are different, so Solar has probably done this before, otherwise the merchant would have the same reaction, the Umbreon likes to tease him about it and they seem to at least be friends and the next page will involve them meeting a Sylveon. That is what it reads, and if we put in the dialogue, that is exactly what is going on here. So no, The poses 100% contribute to storytelling and it absolutely conveys the point I want to get across. So unless you can demonstrate why it doesn't I say you are wrong on this point.
"The black shading and lines look very unprofessional" First of all, there is no black shading. I never used black to shade with anything on here. Shadow probably has the darkest color and it still wasn't black. The way I do it is get the color they are, then use a darker, more grayed version of the color, and apply it gradually. Black is never used in shading. As for the lines, there is nothing unprofessional about it. It is what you call an art style. It creates a cartoony pixelated appearance to semi realistic characters, which is what I want. It is there on purpose. If the lines were not supposed to be there or they were supposed to be thicker or something, then it would be unprofessional. However it's not, it's supposed to look like that. If you don't like how it looks, that's fine, but it's not unprofessional just because of that.
"The worst, and, unfortunately, the most prominent thing about this page is that the poses are very stiff." So I saved this for last, I think a couple of the poses could use a tweak, mostly in the humans, but to say all of them are stiff is gross exaggeration to me. Legs and arms are bent at least a little at joints, tails and ears are usually turning or bending, Their backs and necks have a curvature in them, etc. I see very little examples of them being outright stiff, even in panels where they might be stiff in one area, they aren't in another. I feel you are over exaggerating this concern. I would agree a few of them could use a little more tweaking in say bending elbows a little more or something like that, but I would disagree that this is a prominent issue or that it is a very noticeable issue either. We already ran through the comic and found that there expressions tell the story just fine, if they were as stiff as you claim, then it should have shown when I did that. It didn't.
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I am still impressed rereading it again, how good you introduced Solar and Shadows characters and nailed them down in a single page.
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Hello Phil (your profile says that),
For fun, I wanna try to review this a little bit.
I will go for the story first.
Starting with the place description is pretty solid, since it creates a calm welcome feeling.
The hot dog scene is priceless. I instantly felt in love with Solars character/ cockiness. I especially enjoyed his pure representation of will, saying he will never be catched. introducing someone so direct,...... pure gold to me!
The people are real and likeable too, just want to do their hard life, enjoy the day, and getting interrpupted by the "hereos" of the story, cursing them.
Lets continue with Shadow. I just recognized he is not only supossed to be Solars counterpart from the get going in terms of appereance, but also character. Im sure he will be right about Solar someday.
For the art style:
This city is what I assume it to look like, dirty and loveless (not loveless drawn, but rather without persons care about each oher).
You may could have streghted that a little bit by some background extras, like a upset garbage in picture 8 or 10.
That would be all for now! I hope you have some joy reading this and keep up the great work, since the story is really great so far!
Regards
Marcel
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Yep, that's me.
Glad you liked the page. I'm pretty happy how it turned out. We'll be seeing a lot more of the city later on.
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Are you re-writing the whole series or just the beginning?
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Just the beginning. I plan to add about 4 new pages to add some better story telling and remake about 5 that tell the story fine but don't look very good. After Nymphia's past, I'll edit the existing pages, cleaning up some shading, tweaking the dialogue to fit the new narrative, stuff like that but after Nymphia's past, there will be no more new pages in the beginning.
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Will we still be seeing the angry Dragon Type's? XD
And Solar is really cocky.
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A few of em, yeah.
Yes indeed, he is very much.
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Oh, okay. :3
That will put him in a few bad spots in the future I'm guessing.
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I think to kill a fairy is just to put a butterfly net around it
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You know technically, if that's the case, the Sylveon should be the antagonist and the goodra should be a victim. But you know, that's just me.
Really, I don't care if she's feisty or shy or what. I got infernapes for days.
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No, I'm not doing it for the lols, I'm going with the facts and my personal tastes. The dragon types were the best of the best until the fairies stole the show. Because of that horse shit made by Gamefreak and Nintendo, I hate all fairy types.
And seriously? Team Rocket? My dad's farts are better at torturing than those losers.
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Well, technically, I'm a fire/fighting type fan, but close enough. And trust me, I'm not even borderline edgy. I'm more rage than edge.
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First off, I neverror said fairies ruined Pokémon. I said fairies stole the dragons' spotlight. Second, the net thing was a fucking joke; a reference to the Fairly Odd Parents. Seriously, how the hell would a simple net hurt a Pokémon?
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Oh come on! The big badass rayquaza get its ass kicked by a flower? How does that make any sense? Seriously, that's just a small part of Pokémon. That's not ruining the whole damn thing.
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I'm saying dragon types should have sensible weaknesses, not horse shut that little fairies can kill mother fucking dragons
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Even based on lore, fairies are shit. Dragons were always the most feared, challenged against only the bravest warriors and defeated only by the mightiest of heroes. The fairies could be killed by literally anyone
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Any of them strong enough to smite a mother fucking dragon?
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They're dragons! Dragons were overpowered when they first came into lore! That's the whole point; they're supposed to be the mightiest of challenges.
And seriously, Kirby's a vacuum cleaner. He sucks his opponents and takes their power for himself. He's like a ditto with a compulsive eating disorder.
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Hey, you said it. You wasted your own time on a guy just wanted to make a reference. Still, only reason I even tolerate fairies is because they're not very effective against fire.
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Uhh what's this all about?
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Just a spat that started with me making a Fairly Odd Parents reference
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Well alright, 'cause I don't want fighting in here.
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Sorry. Don't worry, it's over with. Not happening again
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Alright then. Well hope you enjoy the comics.
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Don't think Sylveon would like it to much if you did that.
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Yeah, Sylveon can kiss my unown
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Ayyy, nice to see some remake ^^
I still have the Oran Berry Scene in my head x3
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Yeah, always wanted to go back and fix the start of this story. So time to make that happen.
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